Current Affair 2015 for SSC & Bank Exam

British PM David Cameron led Conservative Party wins 2015 general election

In the 2015 United Kingdom Parliamentary elections, Prime Minister David Cameron led Conservative Party has won the election. Conservative Party by winning 331 seats out of total 650 seats in House of Commons has emerged single largest party in this general election. Conservative Party received 36.9% vote share of the total national vote. With this win, David Cameron will become Prime Minister for second term. Labour Party has won 232 seats with 30.4%  vote share, emerging as largest opposition party. Scottish National Party (SNP) has emerged third largest party in this election by winning 56 seats with 9% of vote share. SNP has won 56 seats of the 59 seats from Scotland.

India, Russia sign 11 MoIs for higher academic cooperation

The Institutions of higher learning in India and Russia have signed 11 Memorandum of Intents (MoIs) to establish the Network of Institutions of Higher Education. As per MoIs, leading Russian and Indian Academic Institutes will combine their efforts to train highly qualified staff for innovative economy and expand scientific, technical and technological cooperation. The establishment of a network of Indian and Russian Universities will facilitate establishment of more institutional linkages, including exchanges of faculty, researchers and students, joint research activities and scientific conferences and symposia. Among those that signed the memorandum from Indian side were IIT Bombay, Madras and Delhi and also University of Delhi, Indian Statistical Institute and Institution of Engineers. A cooperation agreement was also signed between the Department of Science & Technology in India and Russian Science Foundation, which will offer another platform for supporting joint research projects. By singing these MoIs with Russia, India seeks to accelerate her economic growth and development through a strong emphasis on technology and innovation.

Indian Army and Bank of India ink MoU on Defence Salary Package

Indian Army and Bank of India (BOI) on 8 May 2015 signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Defence Salary Package. The signed MoU is a revised version of previous and first MoU which was signed in 2011 between both parties and was valid for a period of three years.

Key facts of revised MoU

• The basic features of the MoU are the same as before and are tailor made to suit the requirements of serving soldiers, pensioners and their families. Number of additional facilities are incorporated after concerted efforts. 
• It includes the standard bundle of free and concessional services. 
• These free services are drafts, cheque books, funds transfers to any bank in India through RTGS and NEFT, ATM cards etc. 
• Added additional facilities also include extended Personal Accident Insurance (PAI) cover upto Rs 10 lacs from current Rs 5 lacs. 
• PAI is for air insurance, Home Loan Insurance on Army Welfare housing Organisation (AWHO) for deaths on account of war, external aggression and terrorist attack up to Rs 50 lacs.

Prime Minister releases commemorative coin on Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati

Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a commemorative coin to mark the birth centenary of Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati in New Delhi. Swami Chinmayananda was a renowned Hindu spiritual leader and teacher who had inspired the formation of a global nonprofit organisation called Chinmaya Mission to spread the knowledge of Advaita Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta is the nondual system of thought found in the Upanishads, which epitomise the philosophical teachings of the Vedas.

About Swami Chinmayananda

• He was born as Balakrishna Menon on 8 May 1916. 
• He was known for teaching Bhagavad gita, the Upanishads, and other ancient Hindu scriptures. 
• Since 1951, he had spearheaded a global Hindu spiritual and cultural renaissance that popularised the religion’s esoteric scriptural texts and also taught them in English all across India and abroad. 
• He had authored around 95 publications that mostly include commentaries on the major Upanishads and Bhagavad gita. 
• He was also a visiting professor of Indian philosophy at several American and Asian universities. He also had conducted university lecture tours in many countries. 
• He died on 3 August 1993 at age 77 in San Diego, California of United States.

Achal Kumar Jyoti appointed as Election Commissioner

President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed Retired IAS officer Achal Kumar Jyoti as the Election Commissioner. He will serve as Election Commissioner for a period of three years, i.e. till he attains the age of 65 years old (the age at which Election Commissioners demit office under the Constitution). With this appointment, the strength of three member Election Commission of India (ECI) has now gone to two.

About Achal Kumar Jyoti

• Achal Kumar Jyoti is retired IAS officer of the 1975 batch and was former Chief Secretary of Gujarat. 
• He had retired from active service in 2013. Earlier, he had worked as the Managing Director of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited. 
• He also had served as Chairman of Kandla Port Trust from 1999 to 2004.

Union Government inked 12 MoUs with other nations on renewable energy in past three years

o enhance cooperation in the renewable energy sector, Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 12 countries in past 3 years. It was announced by Union Minister of Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. In addition to these 12 MoUs, a letter of intend and joint declaration of intend were also signed with Egypt and Germany for this sector.

Statistics of India’s Renewable energy sector

In year 2014-15, the power generation from renewable energy sources was 61,780.55 million units (MUs) compared to 53,058.76 MUs in 2013-14 and 47,613.06 MUs in 2012-13. In year 2014-14, power produced from various renewable energy source include 4,598.34 MUs from solar, 33,768.21 MUs from wind, 3,159.84 from biomass, 7,959.55 from small hydel projects and 11,880.75 MUs from bagasse.

Nadia District in West Bengal gets 2015 UN Public Service Award

Nadia district in West Bengal has won the 2015 United Nations Public Service Award in the category of improving delivery of public services for the initiative ‘Sabar Shouchagar’ It was announced by the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The award will be presented by the UN Secretary General in June 2015 in Medellin, Colombia. Nadia district is the first open defecation free district in country. The district had achieved this feat by making toilets available for all under state governments flagship programme Sabar Shouchagar. Work in regard to making the Nadia district free from open defecation was initiated in 2013. In one-and-half-years, toilets were built in 5 lakh households and over 200 cluster toilets in public places. For this project around Rs 400 crore was spent. After completion of the building toilets under the project, the percentage of people defecating in open has gone down to 0.02 per cent compared to 33.8 per cent when project was started.

Ten Indian-origin MPs elected to UK Parliament

A record number of 10 Indian-origin Members of Parliament (MPs) were elected in recently concluded general election that elected 56th Parliament of the UK. It has broken the previous 2010 general election record in which eight Indian-origin were elected

Following are the elected Indian-origin candidates 

Conservative Party: 

• Priti Patel- won from Witham constituency. 
• Rishi Sunak- won from Richmond (Yorks) constituency. 
• He is son-in-law of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy. 
• Alok Sharma- won from Reading West constituency. 
• Shailesh Vara- won from Cambridgeshire Northwest constituency. 
• Suella Fernandes- won from Fareham constituency. 
• Labour Party: Keith Vaz- won from Leicester East constituency. 
• Valerie Vaz- won from Walsall South constituency. 
• Virendra Sharma- won from Ealing Southall constituency. 
• Seema Malhotra- won from south west London constituency. 
• Lisa Nandy- won from Wigan constituency.

SBI launches RuPay Platinum debit card
India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has launched a RuPay Platinum debit card in association with National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). The card initially would be issued free to customers maintaining a quarterly balance of 50,000 rupees. For the convenience of customers, this card has a special feature which is accepted at all payment channels including ATMs, point-of-sale (PoS) and eCommerce. RuPay Platinum debit card holders will also get additional benefits like 5 per cent cash back on utility bill, complimentary concierge services, personal accident death and permanent total disability insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh, complimentary airport lounge. It should be noted that, presently SBI has 19.7 crore debit cards in circulation. Of this total debit cards in circulation,  4.5 crore are RuPay cards.